(19-05-2012 09:55 AM)lucradis Wrote: Saying there was God and it created everything is no answer to anything. I don't understand how theist can ask so many questions and answer them all the same. The answer of God is only the beginning to another long series of questions. It is not an answer. How is God an answer? How? Seriously.

Let's say for arguments sake that God did create everything, then we can forget about asking why and just leave it at that for a moment... God satisfies your need for a how, so far as the universe is concerned, because now you have a causation for the universe and you feel confident in that because you believe there has to be a reason to everything and a cause for existence... but then theists always say that God is exempt from this law. God doesn't need a creator, God has always been and always will. Derp derp derp. That is in a word, Retarded. It is an answer that has no explanation or causation to explain how the universe has an explanation and causation.

Replace The big bang with God. We have more evidence for the big bang than God, but we still have no idea what happened before.

The argument that the big bang doesn't answer anything because there is no reason behind it, and there had to be something before it. Is fine, because we are actively searching for answers as to what came before if there was anything. But now replace the last sentence with God and erase the part about actively searching for any answers....

You've got a point, and it's even stronger than you might think. Because if there is a God, and if God has no cause and no beginning but has existed eternally, and if he is the only thing that exists, then his existence is ultimately utterly meaningless. And this applies to any concept of God.

Yet the opposite view seems as easy to accept, and perhaps is more in line with the nature of this universe. As we have sought to more deeply understand the universe, we have not found will and intelligence peering back at us. Instead we have found cold hard mechanics of unloving, uncaring matter, energy, etc. To see these things we understand relatively well as some kind of benevolent force is to draw a truly surprising conclusion. More disturbingly, it's a conclusion that itself makes no further predictions about the universe so cannot be verified or rejected.

If you know something special about the universe from your contact with it that is able to describe how something will behave, and those predictions differ from the natural predictions we would otherwise make, then you can state those predictions and we can test your hypothesis. If you are not able to make predictions about reality then those who do postulate specific predictions will tend to wonder on what basis you describe what you believe as knowledge.

So someone who sees the universe as a living breathing thing that cares for us may be inclined to look back to its origin and conclude the same kind of will and benevolence for that origin. Someone who sees the universe as a hostile and mechanical bubble may be inclined to look back to its origin and conclude the same kind of lack of will for that origin. We simply don't know what is outside of our universe at this time, nor how that stuff interacts with the origin of the universe and its ongoing properties.

I for one ascribe no special will or purpose to the beginning of our universe nor to its continuation. Although I keep an open mind to new evidence I believe that the evidence we have today tends to lead to the conclusion that the origin of the universe had the same nature as the universe itself: Some form of mechanical progression from one state of another state, where the later state is what we describe as "the universe".

Give me your argument in the form of a published paper, and then we can start to talk.

The god of all religions is given specific attributes, all allegedly good.

Our 'goodness' cannot go beyond our ability to rationalize, so all the bad stuff in holy writ has to be sort of pasteurised to enable the purveyors of gods to sell their wares.

The Deist claims that there must be a first cause or initial consition to get eveything started, so to speak, and causality of this nature does not have specific moral identity.

If an ever evolving force of moral decency and creativity exists, transcendentally, could this force be labelled god or is it incumbant upon us to follow the god marketers, who can be very sneaky. IMO a 'god attitude' that does not impinge on others rights is quite acceptable.

(19-05-2012 10:09 PM)TheBeardedDude Wrote: I forgot one other thing too, you also use the word 'entity' in your definition. This adds yet another layer to your definition by now saying that not only is it connected to everything, but that it is a being of some sort, this seems to be a redundant addition to your definition since you have already used the term 'consciousness' in the definition, unless you are suggesting it has some form, but I seem to remember you arguing against that in other threads.

You are right. My definition of God could be edited to say: God is the monistic fundamental consciousness. To include the word "Entity" implies that there is God and then there is that which is not God which gives rise to a form or entity. Thank you for your input. I greatly appreciate it.

So then, God is the monistic fundamental consciousness.

So, why do I believe in God? Because I have reason to believe consciousness exists external to neurological systems. I have had distinct episodes of precognition and I've observed and studied apparent consciousness in paramecia which have no neurological systems. Evidence of this external consciousness leads me to believe that consciousness comes from the universe itself and may be monistic in nature. Of course, I continue to study and refine this theory.

(19-05-2012 12:07 AM)Egor Wrote: Seriously, when you think about it, how can there be no form of God? I mean if there were no God, why would anything exist? Absolute nothingness is a state that cannot change without conscious input of some sort. So, when you say you're an atheist, what you really mean is that you believe the universe has always existed--for eternity for no reason at all.

To me that's an incredible thought process that requires a complete crucifixion of the intellect--just like religion does.

That is one of the greatest problems with the human mind, most of us being raised by religious parents, it is almost an instinct to believe that everything must exist for a reason. That it has purpose and worth, and that a god gives it that purpose and worth. But what if things simply existed because they do exist?

I could answer this for you, but first you need to ask yourself the right questions... but then you wouldn't need me.

(19-05-2012 11:55 PM)Bucky Ball Wrote: You still have not explained how consiousness can proceed in a non-temporal environment. Doesn't "consiousness" imply the processing of information? If not, it's dead. No ?

If that is your definition of consciousness doesn't that make certain computers alive?

(19-05-2012 12:07 AM)Egor Wrote: Seriously, when you think about it, how can there be no form of God? I mean if there were no God, why would anything exist? Absolute nothingness is a state that cannot change without conscious input of some sort. So, when you say you're an atheist, what you really mean is that you believe the universe has always existed--for eternity for no reason at all.

To me that's an incredible thought process that requires a complete crucifixion of the intellect--just like religion does.

That argument seems inconsequential to me. By explaining the existence of our universe with the existence of God, you're not gaining anything and just raising further questions. In other words, if you claim that the universe couldn't have come into existence without something causing it, then it's irrational to explain it's origin with a creator who has not been created himself.

(20-05-2012 12:23 AM)Vosur Wrote: That argument seems inconsequential to me. By explaining the existence of our universe with the existence of God, you're not gaining anything and just raising further questions. In other words, if you claim that the universe couldn't have come into existence without something causing it, then it's irrational to explain it's origin with a creator who has not been created himself.

(20-05-2012 12:23 AM)Vosur Wrote: That argument seems inconsequential to me. By explaining the existence of our universe with the existence of God, you're not gaining anything and just raising further questions. In other words, if you claim that the universe couldn't have come into existence without something causing it, then it's irrational to explain it's origin with a creator who has not been created himself.